Exspecto, quis?
by WDW
Summary: Returning from his trip around the world, a tourist makes an unpleasant discovery.
1. Chapter 1

The crow let out an undignified screech as it was pulled to its death by the thousands of tiny, writhing tendrils. They latched onto its long, gawky legs, and then its feathered body, mindless of the desperate flapping of its large wings. It sank deeper and deeper until finally, the mass closed over its dark animal eyes and it was gone.

It was quiet. Then, as if some metaphysical button had been pushed in the universe, the mass began to ripple, contorting into strange eldritch shapes as it started to grow and take form, the black and crimson drawing together to form -

He opened his eyes. _Crap_, he thought groggily to himself, _I _knew _I shouldn't have tried the fried hedgehog. _He always got the weird dreams after the weird meals. But it had been the local specialty, and he felt an obligation to at least try it.

It wasn't as bad as the rotten shark meat, at least. He didn't think he had eaten anything that tasted worse than the rotten shark meat, and he had eaten a lot of weird shit.

The gentle rocking of the ship could be soothing if he didn't think about how he was lying in a vessel surrounded by miles and miles of water. He had always feared water, especially after that particular incident that had left him drifting for days in the middle of the ocean.

But that had been why he had chosen to go on the cruise in the first place. Face your fears, they said.

He didn't have a lot of things he feared. Heights? Quite the opposite. Darkness? Please. Monsters? He wasn't even going to dignify that with a response. No, what he feared was the chilling embrace of water, the feeling of being taken apart at the molecular level. The heat and light of an explosion, burning and tearing at every part of his body. He had his reasons.

He staggered over to the small wooden desk in the corner of his cramped room. The ship was large, but when divided into a few hundred rooms, it didn't allow for much individual space. He wiped at his face tiredly.

He hadn't had much of a plan when he embarked on his trip around the world, nothing other than to experience humanity in its full. And so he had done things both exciting and dull - he went to a library, visited the White House, surveyed the world from atop the Great Wall, and had spent a few miserable weeks in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. He had ventured into the Congo, had visited slums and the dark holes of human society in which evil festered, and explored the museums that detailed the incredible atrocities committed by the human race.

Arriving in the worst places on the planet, he had held several expectations. But by the time he left, he found that they had been thoroughly shaken.

It wasn't that humanity was inherently good. The fiasco in Manhattan was proof enough of that, a man-made would-be apocalypse that resulted from the actions of corrupt scientists with no regard whatsoever for the value of human life. Neither was humanity evil. He had met too many with genuine goodwill and hope to be able to say that with a straight face.

What he had discovered, in his months abroad, was this: humanity was different. Seven billion people on the planet, capable of the utmost evil and good, sometimes at the same time. Though few, there were members of Blackwatch who thought they were genuinely doing the right thing. Scientists who had, despite much evidence to the contrary, considered their research to be aiding the overall advancement of humankind. If there was someone capable of passing judgment on humanity... well, he was probably the last person who could qualify for the job.

He had left Manhattan to understand humanity. Now, he was returning with the knowledge that he had failed. But perhaps in failure, he did succeed; humanity wasn't understandable, not like the ingrained instincts of a virus, or the methodical placement of data in a table.

If it was, it wouldn't _be_ humanity.

He sighed, staring tiredly at the half-written letter on his tiny, plastic desk, the upper half covered in messy chicken scratch, not unlike a doctor's scrawl. A day from port, and he still hadn't gathered the nerves to finish writing, let alone send it. Perhaps, he was still unable to face his fears. Perhaps it was not the power of a nuclear explosion that haunted his mind, or the vast emptiness of the seas that covered the majority of the planet, or the slow eroding effect that water had on all things, including himself - perhaps, he was most afraid of telling the truth.

Maybe that was why he had left Manhattan. He didn't want to see that inevitable disgust, the growing horror, the look of betrayal...

But he had returned. He was here. He would be in Manhattan in days, and when he finally got there, he would tell her everything. If she hated him, so be it. She deserved to know the truth.

He stared at the paper for a few more minutes before crumpling it into a ball and, with impeccable accuracy, threw it in the waste bin across the room. He could just tell her face to face, he reasoned. He wasn't trying to put it out of mind, hoping to forget the skeletons in his closet before the inevitable. Of course he wasn't.


	2. Chapter 2

He scrubbed away at a difficult stain as he watched the red letters scroll across the bottom of the screen. A stone-faced man with thinning white hair and a gray suit gave the day's news. The usual. Some poor bastard found in pieces at the bottom of a lake, a new study on the effects of some shit he didn't care about on, surprisingly enough, some other shit he didn't care about, and the old white men still wasting his tax dollars chit chatting. And judging from the letters, nothing's changed there either.

The news gave way to a cheerful blonde holding a jug of laundry detergent, and he looked away. There weren't much customers today, seeing how it was a weekday and all. A few regulars were drinking in the shadows, their talking a distant quiet murmur occasionally broken by a loud laugh or cheer. A glum looking brunette nursing her particularly bright colored cocktail, scribbling on a crumpled piece of paper. Probably one of those writer types. Easy half hour till closing.

"Wow. Whaddya think about _that_, huh?"

Except for the blond who had insinuated himself into the seat in front of him, ignoring every meaningful look he had given him. The kid - early twenties at the most, if he could guess - had been desperate to make conversation, awkwardly stuttering out conversation starters, almost as if he had read them out of a book. Probably lost a bet. That, or he genuinely believed that talking to an old bartender could get himself worldly lessons.

It was late. He threw him a bone. "Yeah? 'Bout what?"

"That whole thing in Manhattan," the blond answered quickly, almost desperately. "I mean, I thought it was all done with the first time. But they started the military lock down last week, and I haven't really heard anything since then. 'Cept. You know."

It had been two years since he had first seen the alarming news plastered onto every major news channel and paper, "Bioweapon Released in Manhattan," "US Government Launches Nationwide Hunt for Terrorist," and other sensational headlines. That, and "Sudden Rise of Reports of Broken Windows in Manhattan," but he didn't know what to make of that. It had ended as alarmingly as it had began, with a nuke going off, off the coast of New York.

"Guess they didn't get rid of all of it," he answered noncommittally.

"It's _crazy_," the other proclaimed, as if he had discovered some secret of the universe. "I mean, what kind of sick fuck would _do _that? There's over a million people in Manhattan. Hell, my sister moved there a couple years ago. She was on vacation in '08 and missed the whole thing, but she wouldn't sell her place and move. Said that she had to wait till the house values go back up. Now she isn't answering my calls, and I have _no_ idea what happened to her."

"Don't do anything stupid," he warned.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." The kid sighed. "There's no way I could get in there anyways. Just. The hell, man? Since the Towers came down, things've been going crazy. One moment there's planes crashing into buildings, next you get some crazy scientist unleashing some super virus on one and a half million people."

Strange words coming from someone who was in elementary school when _that_ had happened, but he didn't bring it up. "Seven billion people in the world, there's always some monsters."

"Yeah, well. Fuck that guy. Fuck Mercer." There was an uneasy silence. "Hey, do you believe what they're saying? Is Mercer behind this outbreak too?"

He gave him an even look. "That's the official news. Hell if I know if it's true."

"No, I mean. They said he was dead, didn't they? Posted pictures of that fuck on every major news channel in the world and nothing came up. If he's alive, he must have gotten some insanely good disguise. Or plastic surgery." A pause. "Oh, hell, do you think he's a woman now?"

He stopped wiping, and gave him an incredulous look. "What the _hell_?"

"No, I'm serious! You've seen those stories. Some high school graduate decides that he's actually a she and gets surgery, and comes out as a hot blonde. What if, man? Mercer could have just chopped off his -"

The heavy mug slammed onto the table surface. "Don't finish that sentence."

"Alright, alright. Just." He struggled briefly for words. "D'you think those suits are telling the truth? They've lied before."

He let go of the mug. "...You've seen the videos, haven't you."

The other blinked. "The... ones from inside the lockdown? Yeah, but you -?"

"I'm old. Doesn't mean I don't know how to use a computer." He sighed. "Lemme tell you something. I was in Manhattan in 2008. I saw _him_."

The blond had turned pale. "Wait, seriously? Like, you're not fucking with me? You saw Alex Mercer? And you _lived_?"

"More likely than you'd think. He didn't kill indiscriminately. Not always, anyways. Near the end, he was like a goddamn predator out of Africa. You'd see him jumping from buildings. Taking on a goddamn tank by himself. Grabbing people off the street and doing god-knows-what to them. And let me tell you. That man in the video... that _was _Mercer. Glowing eyes were new. The mad scientist talk too, but hell if I had ever seen him _talk_. But that was him, I'd bet my life on it."

_Krrish_.

Both men turned their heads at the sound of glass breaking. Bright fruity drink dripped from the table to the ground as its owner stared into the distance, a completely blank expression on her face, not noticing the shattered glass around her, or the drink landing on her jacket. Within a few seconds, however, as if finally noticing their stares, she sprung up, her face such a picture of innocent surprise that he had to wonder if he was imagining everything else.

"Ohmigod! I'm so sorry, I must have put it down too hard, or -"

He cursed and grabbed the first aid kit from under the counter. The brunette waved him away. "No, it's fine, I'm not hurt, it's just... God, I'm sorry. Look, l pay for it, I just need to - I need to take care of something. Actually - " She pulled out a black wallet and threw a bill onto the table. Then she took off, before either of the men could think to stop her.

"What the hell was that?" The kid asked breathlessly. "I didn't even notice that she was here."

He picked the soggy bill from the table, looked at it, and did a double take. The green visage of Benjamin Franklin greeted his eyes. "...the hell?" He whispered to himself in confusion.

A crumpled piece of paper, writing blurred by the spilled cocktail, was stuck to the table. He scraped it off gingerly and held it up to the light.

It was difficult to tell, what with the ink smears and the messy handwriting, but he could just make out the name, 'Dana'.


	3. Chapter 3

After the viral outbreak that had swept Manhattan,quite a few of its former residents had moved elsewhere. Some had only been staying in the city for business purposes and saw no reason to stay, now that the island was little more than red tape, destroyed buildings and rotting flesh. Others bowed to outside pressure and moved to somewhere 'safer', not isolated from the mainland.

But the majority had stayed. Perhaps in another city, the release of a deadly virus that mutated its carriers into grotesque semblances of their original selves would have turned the city into a no man's land, where the original population had fled and no new residents dared to enter. But this was Manhattan, and those who lived there were a tough sort. They lived through one outbreak, and while they had no desire to experience another, the idea of 'giving up' was anathema to them. If they stayed through that, they would stay now.

Dana had moved to Manhattan just months before the outbreak, but she stayed anyhow. For a much different reason than the vast majority of the population, but she stayed. Of course, not long after Manhattan had returned, more or less, to its original state, her 'reason' had left and returned, in little less than a year, with a strange glint in his suddenly cold eyes and a much more pronounced cruelty streak.

Just a few weeks after that, he had turned against humanity and restarted the very thing he had put an end to, the last time, and Dana realized with a start that she had made a mistake. Her brother wasn't the man she thought he was, wasn't who he had pretended to be for those desperate few weeks they had spent together, working together to end the outbreak. Hell, she wasn't even sure he _was_ her brother anymore.

To his dubious credit, he had offered a place at his side. A place that Dana had refused, because _she_, at least, wasn't a mass-murdering psycho. That had landed her at the top of his target list and forced her to abandon the apartment she had _just_ started to make her own and to find a place off of her brother - Alex - _his_ radar.

She had worked against him, in any way he could. If he was ZEUS, well, then she would be Athena. Goddess of wisdom, skill, and while she hadn't sprung full grown from Alex's forehead, well. It was his actions that lead to her taking up this role. And maybe, in a way, his rise was her fault. Dana had trusted him, had fallen for the act. She had helped him evade Blackwatch, helped him get off the island and see the world for himself.

She thought that he had truly cared. That whatever happened to him had changed him for the better, that for the first time since her early childhood, she would have a brother who didn't try to pretend that she didn't exist.

But that had all been a lie, and now she was paying for her mistake.

In many ways, the city was just like it had been little less than a few years ago. She hadn't seen much of the city firsthand, last time. Alex had been obstinate that she stayed inside at all times. Other than that... _incident_ that had ended with her in a coma and the view outside of her apartment window, she had been relatively unaware of what Manhattan had been transformed into. Sure, she had seen the cellphone videos and amateur photography, but that hardly compared to the real thing.

Another difference. Alex had gotten her supplies, last time. She didn't know how and where he had gotten them and she hadn't asked, just happy to eat, even if it was just a box of stale Cheerios or slightly crushed potato chips.

Now that she was forced to get her own, Dana really wished Alex had said _something_. After all, it wasn't like she was going to ask _James_ to, maybe, pick up a few canned goods while he was off chopping Infected into small pieces.

She winced as she flexed her fingers, trying to get rid of the stiffness before the final stretch. Dana had hauled her bounty all the way, taking care to avoid any Infected for fear that their attention would draw Alex's. Some kind of weird ass viral hivemind shit. She didn't know for sure, and it wasn't like she could ask him about it.

Dana trudged toward the door and reached into her pocket for the key. Rubbing the sweat off her face, she pushed the key in, turned, and.

She froze. There was no tell tale click of the lock being unlocked. Dana looked toward the door with a new trepidation. In fact... she pushed the door, then scrambled back as it fell back, completely off the hinges. By the time it hit the ground, she had already whipped around, staring into a face she had never wanted to see again.

"Dana," said the thing who used to be her brother, looking at her with piercing blue eyes. "We need to talk."


End file.
